A journal of remodeling our midcentury modern home (one of the few in Santa Fe).

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Cabinets and Colors

Well, things are rolling along over here at Rancho Tostado although I have to confess, Rancho Tostado may be in for a name update as well. Toast Ranch fit our old house perfectly and when we moved here, Rancho Tostado seemed appropriate. But - there is a classic MCM hotel in Scottsdale, AZ called the Hotel Valley Ho. We happen to live on Valley Dr. and I have been calling our place The Valley Ho for awhile now. I guess it can have two names for now.

Anyway, all of our walls have been painted. For those wanting particulars, we used Valspar from Lowe's - Woodlawn Whitewash is the white we chose, Arid Plains is the taupe color, and Araucana Sage is the pale green on the rafters (it's in the Martha Stewart line of Valspar paints). I was worried it would be too green. We had tried several greens on the rafters before and they hadn't worked. I'm real happy with this color, it is very subtle and in certain lighting, it almost looks white. It is also very similar to the cool green concrete of the patio outside the sliding glass doors. We used the taupe on the "cube" of the pantry and laundry room - and on the kitchen wall behind the cabinets - and on the opposite wall, on the fireplace.

I'm still not sure about it being on the fireplace but everyone else likes it and says it is better than the white was. I guess my problem with it is that it looks too much like adobe brick (a la Santa Fe style), not the look I am going for. But I think with furniture etc. it will look better and I think it is nice to have taupe on that wall opposite the kitchen so that is what we are going with for now.

The cabinets are in but most don't have the doors or drawers in yet. So for now, they all look a little plain and so will the countertop once it is done (in a basic charcoal Graphite Nebula laminate by Wilsonart). But all of this was meant to be low-key because of the tile which we will be putting in, which has more of a presence. We'll have to wait a few weeks to see it all together.

A few other things got done which were less thrilling. The main water cut-off outside was found to be a couple of feet underground, with a long, flimsy rod sticking up out of the ground which you supposedly would turn to turn the water off. Only the thing felt so flimsy, you were sure it might just break off, which would not be good.

The plumber was not happy with this, it certainly is no longer code - so after John dug a hole to get down to everything, the plumber redid the cut-off and now it is easily accessed through our own personal manhole. John still needs to fill the dirt back in.

And another little detail. My workroom gets afternoon sun and really warms up. The rest of the house stays relatively cool with not much solar gain. We decided that if possible, in this remodel, we would try and do something to increase the airflow between my office and the living area. So, when they were doing demolition and taking down the dropped ceiling in the hallway (well, they didn't take down all of the dropped ceiling, but they took down some of it), they cut into my office wall. The result is like a high clerestory window, except we are going to try it with no window. A few of the rafters from the hallway go through this space, so John painted the rafters in my office this weekend so they wouldn't turn from green to white as they went through the window. The gaping hole on the end of the dropped ceiling is the plenum for the heating system and will have some sort of cool grille on it, haven't decided exactly what to use yet. Since John is a car mechanic, everyone likes the idea of using some sort of auto grille which would be cut to fit the space. I need to hunt around some more for these online.

And one more thing- online shopping and ebay are a great resource. I bought a fabulous contemporary Modern Fan Co. fan on ebay for our last house - it was brand new, in the box, and cost incredibly less than you'd pay for it anywhere else. So - for this remodel - I have bought a cool rimless stainless steel sink at overstock.com, I bought a Hansgrohe kitchen faucet on ebay, and interior door handles on ebay (all new).

Highly recommended. In fact, I'm getting ready to go on ebay right now and buy some barstools, which you can see after I get them!

And a final note. John was just now removing the vanity in the guest bathroom . As you may recall, we tore the white carpet out of there at the beginning of the remodel and now it is floored in dingy bits of the original linoleum. Even though remodeling the guest bath was not to be included as part of this project, redoing the floor ended up on the list. As they are going to be laying the new tile in there tomorrow, John decided to help out and remove the vanity. When he was doing this, he found a hole in the wall behind the vanity and upon looking in there, he found tons of old razor blades. I know old houses sometimes had a place you could dispose of your old razor blades in the wall and I guess we just found ours!